Why are religious people less intelligent?
A nice guy nailed to a tree.
I find this very interesting: statistically speaking, intelligent* people tend to be less religious and religious people less intelligent. Several studies have found a negative correlation between IQ and religious belief.
Now, why is that? Are people with a lower IQ more prone to become religious? If your view of the world is slightly dimmer than the average persons, it would perhaps make sense to be drawn towards believing in deities - someone or something to explain all the stuff that’s going on. And if that’s true, how about the flip side? Would more intelligent people be more likely to ’see through’ religious beliefs, and turn to science for explanations? Perhaps, although I doubt it’s the only explanation.
Or is it an educational thing? Highly educated people have, more often than not, a higher IQ than people with lower or no education. So are religious people less likely to pursue a higher education? And would that explain the statistics? There are indeed fewer religious people in academic circles than in the rest of the population. So, if a country has a higher proportion of academics, they would have a higher percentage of non-believers. Again, this could be part of the explanation.
To further complicate the matter, we need to consider that IQ is only one measure of intelligence. There might be several types of intelligence (visual, verbal, logical, musical etc), and there are some studies that hint at a positive link between emotional intelligence and religiosity.
My personal view is that we’re all inherently religious (all known human societies are highly religious, after all), but as our understanding of the world grows we are given the opportunity to ‘ascend’ beyond religious beliefs. Religion, in my eyes, is just a substitute for when in our childhood our parents were ‘gods’ who knew everything and could deal with any problem. As we grew up and realised this was not the case, we felt a longing for someone or something to take over that comforting role. This would also explain why some believe in a loving and caring god, whilst others believe in a strict and punishing one. The gods of our religions are our substitute parents, and we’d choose to believe in one that represents our own parents as closely as possible. Or, if you’re smart, not to believe in them.
* Intelligence is represented in this post by the measure of the intelligence quotient (IQ)
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The idea that religion is a substitute is interesting, however, whilst probably partly true, is unlikely to be the whole truth. Throughout life we find role models, how we judge/evaluate these role models would probably be subjective and based upon our life experiences to that point in time. What I suspect has happened is that some very popular chap – unlike Gordon Brown, captured the hearts and minds of the people, and in doing so scared the living daylights out of the then current administration. (read Nick Clegg)
The administration – like many political parties hi-jacked this latest FAD and created a policy initiative called religion. After subtly crafting a manifesto- aka bible, they released it for all to review. Unfortunately, like all good manifestos they strive to offer something for everyone – however, in this party you can only take part if you subscribe to the whole.
Quite how well this theory parallels your comments about low IQ’s will be played out on the 6th May, unfortunately though, history has clearly shown that strong religious bias = low IQ, USA – George Bush – 2 TERMS!!
So who is this “Gordon Brown” that you speak of? Pray, tell me more..
Because they’re religious. Duh.
Frankly, I’ve always (well, not always, having grown up in the uber-religious and conservative Bible Belt, as a child I made to feel absolutely terrified to NOT believe) found the premise of Christianity to be preposterous and offensive. God is omnipotent, but in order to forgive us our sins, Jesus (who was God, but as a human, sort of) had to die in a most gruesome and unpleasant way? That’s like telling my younger son, Yeah, you messed up, and I’d really like to unground you, but first your brother is going to have to suffer for what you did.
God seems awfully petty, don’t you think? And very touchy about who believes in him or not. Almost like… and I’m only speculating here, obviously… he doesn’t really exist, and if you don’t believe in him, his power over you disappears.